"I need your help. My mysterious friend can do no more; he has said so.
I'm not equal to it alone."
"Oh," she cried, as if yielding to a feeling long suppressed, "I did so want to be rid of it all, and now you are in danger—the greatest danger. Won't you give it up?"
He shook his head, puzzled at her vehemence. "I don't wish to drag you into it against your will, but Oliveta lives there among her countrypeople. She must know many things which I, as an outsider, could never learn. I—need help."
There was a long silence before the girl said:
"Yes, I will help, for I am still the same woman you knew in Sicily. I am still full of hatred. I would give my life to convict Martel's assassins; but I am fighting myself. That is why I have gone to live with Oliveta until I have conquered and am ready to become a Sister."
"Please don't say that."
"Oliveta, you know, is alone," she went on, with forced composure, "and so I watch over her. She is to be married soon, and when she is safe, then I think I can return to the Sisters and live as I long to. It will be a good match, much better than I ever hoped for, and she loves, which is even more blessed to contemplate." Vittoria laid her hands impulsively upon his arm. "Meanwhile I cannot refuse such aid as I can give you, for you have already suffered too much through me. You have suffered, have you not?"
"It has turned my hair gray," he laughed, trying not to show the depth of his feeling. "But now that I know you are safe and well and happy, nothing seems to matter. Does Myra Nell know who you are?"
"No one knows save you and Oliveta. If that child even dreamed—" She lifted her slender hands in an eloquent gesture. "My secret would be known in an hour. Now I must go, for even housemaids must observe the proprieties."
"It's late. I think I had better see you safely home."